Release Checklist Template

# Release Checklist Release version: [version or PR link] Release date: [date and time] Release owner: [name] Rollback contact: [name or on-call handle] --- ## Pre-release (before deploy starts) ### Code and tests - [ ] All tests pass in CI (unit, integration, linting) - [ ] No known critical bugs in the release scope - [ ] Dependency scan passed (no critical vulnerabilities) - [ ] PR reviewed and approved by at least one other engineer ### Deployment readiness - [ ] Staging deploy completed and manually tested - [ ] Staging health checks passing - [ ] Database migrations tested on staging (if applicable) - [ ] Feature flags set correctly for production - [ ] Secrets and config values verified for production environment ### Rollback readiness - [ ] Rollback procedure documented and tested - [ ] Previous working version identified: [version or commit SHA] - [ ] Estimated rollback time: [X minutes] - [ ] On-call engineer aware of release: yes / no ### Go / No-go decision - [ ] All pre-release items checked - Decision: GO / NO-GO --- ## Deploy - [ ] Deploy triggered at [time] - [ ] Deploy completed at [time] - [ ] Health checks passing post-deploy - [ ] Error rate: [baseline] → [current] (acceptable? yes / no) - [ ] Latency p95: [baseline] → [current] (acceptable? yes / no) - [ ] No spike in 5xx errors in the first 5 minutes --- ## Post-release (first 30 minutes) - [ ] Monitor error rate for 15 minutes — stable? yes / no - [ ] Check latency dashboard — stable? yes / no - [ ] Check logs for unexpected errors - [ ] Verify key user flows work (smoke test): [list flows] - [ ] Confirm with product/support: no unusual reports --- ## Rollback (if needed) - [ ] Decision to rollback made at: [time], reason: [brief description] - [ ] Rollback triggered at: [time] - [ ] Rollback completed at: [time] - [ ] System stable post-rollback: yes / no - [ ] Post-mortem owner assigned: [name] --- ## Notes [Any observations, surprises, or items for the post-release review]